Merchants spend a considerable amount of their investment dollars in marketing their resources to consumers. Often these marketing efforts are blind to the specific needs or preferences of the consumers they target, making them inefficient in influencing or predicting consumer purchasing decisions. Moreover, prediction of potential consumer purchasing decisions is further complicated when consumers make purchases for other consumers, such as gifts, or when consumers are influenced by other consumer's recommendations. Finally, a merchant's marketing efforts may not be executed at a time when a targeted consumer is susceptible to make a purchase.
On the other hand, many consumers now carry a portable consumer device capable of sending and receiving information, such as cellular telephones. Therefore, consumers are gaining access to more information as they make purchasing decisions. For example, a consumer may access a search engine with a browser executing on a World Wide Web enabled cellular telephone to search for specified resources that may be sold by merchants. However, the information the consumer receives may not be well directed to the needs or preferences of the consumer.
Accordingly, it would be an advance in the art of commerce to provide timely and well tailored communications to facilitate subsequent transactions.